The Tenth International Conference was held in Siena, Italy,
July 10-13, 2012, with 665 delegates from 66 countries around the globe. ForTeS, Fondazione Scuola de alta Formazione
per il Terzo Settore, (Training School for the Third Sector Foundation) and
Universitá
Degli Studi di Siena served as our local hosts. ISTR celebrated its 20th
Anniversary and highlights included the keynote speakers, John Keane, Professor
of Politics at the University of Sydney and at the Wissenschaftszenrum
Berlin(WZB) and a longstanding author about civil society, and Rami Kouri,
Director of the Issam Fares Institute of Public Policy and International
Affairs at the American University of Beirut, as well as editor-at-large of the
Beirut-based Daily Star
newspaper.

Workshops were held the first day and included Civil Society at the Crossroads? Building Links with Emerging Citizen
Initiatives, that presented cases of civil society at the crossroads in
Chile, India, South Africa and the United Kingdom. A second workshop, Strategic Philanthropy: Learning by Giving, focused on inspiring
and preparing instructors to teach an experiential undergraduate class in
strategic philanthropy, and to provide resources and a professional network to
support their course development. A third workshop, organized by the Affinity
Group on Gender, presented a workshop focused on women as leaders in Australia,
Sweden and Uruguray.

Special invited sessions were continued due to their success
at the last international conference.
These special sessions included: Changing Ideas and Debate on Civil Society and
the Third Sector over Twenty Years of ISTR:
A Forum of ISTR Scholars over Two Decades; American Foundations in
Europe: Archival Insights; The Role of
Foundations in the Field of Philanthropy Studies and Research; Civil Society at
the Crossroads: Citizen Energy and
Social Change; Getting Published and Peer Reviewing. These last two sessions focused on the
professional aspects of research: journal
publishing, book publishing and the craft of reviewing. The sessions were designed to build skills by
allowing you to ask questions of experienced editors and authors.

The program included 172 paper and panel sessions and 13
posters. This strong academic program was
made possible by the scholarly contributions of many, many reviewers and the
Academic Conference Committee.

Also introduced in 2012 was a conference blog and
twitter. A large screen was set up at
the registration area to show the tweets "on screen” in real time.

The conference also included a multitude of networking
opportunities including authors of recently published books signing their
books, new Society members meeting the board of ISTR and an ISTR Center
Directors meeting for 34 directors of academic centers to share and network
with their colleagues.

The 11th International Conference will be held July 22-25, 2014 in Muenster, Germany, at the University of Muenster. Alberto Hernandez (Mexico) and Rupert Strachwitz (Germany) will serve as the Conference Co-Chairs.

Inaugural PhD Seminar

The seminar was established as part of the Society’s mission
to build the field of third sector research and identify it as a legitimate field
of study. The seminar focused on
providing extensive intellectual and methodological advice on the participant’s
doctoral research, introducing students to the main theories and recent
developments in the field, guiding reflection upon publication and career strategies, and providing a unique
opportunity to network with junior and senior scholars within the international
research community.

The Inaugural PhD Seminar attracted 81 applications from 29
countries. Based on a double peer review
process, 50 applicants were invited to the Seminar. The final group included 45 students from 21
countries.

The seminar consisted of both plenary and parallel group
sessions in which the participants had the opportunity to present and discuss
their doctoral research with peers, junior and senior faculty. Participants were grouped thematically, but
the groups’ composition was heterogeneous in terms of concrete research topics,
disciplinary background, research stage, method and regional affiliation. Eleven faculty (from Australia, Belgium, Hong
Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Sweden, and the
USA) were critical to providing guidance and focus for the discussions. Professor Steven Rathgeb Smith enhanced the
program with his keynote address, Government, Markets and the Third
Sector. More practical workshops focused
on publishing and writing, career strategies and the tension between
fundamental and applied research.

The 2014 PhD Seminar is currently being planned and will be
a recurring event that will take place biennially in conjunction with the
international conference. It is open to
all doctoral students in the field of third sector and civil society research,
across the different regionals in the world and at all stages of their doctoral
research. Matthias Freise, an ISTR
member and academic officer at the Department of Political Science at Muenster
University, has agreed to chair the Seminar.
Matthias was an active member of the European PhD network and brings a
great deal of experience to the task.

Awards

The ISTR Emerging Scholar Dissertation Award presented
biennially for an outstanding dissertation that contributes to the field of
comparative study of civil society organizations, nonprofit organizations,
philanthropy, voluntarism and related issues.
In 2012, the selection committee received 18 submissions from 11
countries, Australia (3), Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Portugal,
Spain (2), Turkey, United Kingdom (2) and the USA (4). The award was given to Marie Peterson
(Denmark) for her study, "For Humanity or for the Umma? Ideologies of Aid in Four Transnational
Muslim NGO’s.”

The committee also presented two awards of merit to Benjamin
Huybrechts (Belgium: "Explaining
Organizational Diversity in Fair Trade Social Enterprises”) and to Jennifer
Brass (USA: "Surogates for Government?
NGOs and the State in Kenya”).

Two new awards were established and funded by Springer, the
publisher of our journal, Voluntas. The awards are for the best article in Voluntas and for the best poster
presentation at the conference.

The Best Article in Voluntas
award is to be given biennially for the Best Article in Voluntas during the previous two year period. A committee was established to read the
journal articles for 2010 and 2011 and select the best article. The committee included: Adalbert Evers
(Germany) chair; Eliza Lee, (Hong Hong); Kari Steen-Johnsen, (Norway); and
Ebenezer Obadare, (USA).

The article that was the unanimous choice of the committee
was The Challenge of Activist Coalition
Governance. Accommodating Diversity of
Create Institutions – An Approach via the Inter-relationship Between Action,
Project and Instrument, by Carine Chemin and Corinne Vercher (Voluntas 22/4
published in December 2011).

The
committee provided a review of their paper and concluded with the following:
"They focus on the ability of Third Sector Organization led networks to
contribute to a more civil society. And that is, we think, an orientation that
holds ISTR researchers together beyond all the diversity of topic and methods
we are busy with. It is after all this
by which contributions like the one of Chemin and Vercher make a difference.”

The award for Best Poster was given to Rahel Mwitula
Williams (USA). The poster was titled,
"Grassroots Initiatives Women Social Entrepreneurs for Poverty
Alleviation.”

All three of these
awards have a rigorous selection process by a team of international scholars,
and not only are they an honor to win, but will contribute to the reputation
and career progression of the scholars who receive them.

Board of Directors

A Nominating Committee was appointed to select nominees for
the board of directors and elections were held.
The election was conducted online and the board of directors for
2013-2014 is as follows:

Wendy
Earles, President (Australia)

Annette
Zimmer, President Elect (Germany)

Gabriel
Berger (Argentina)

Paul Dekker
(Netherlands)

Nabila Hamza
(Jordan)

Samiul Hasan
(United Arab Emirates)

Alberto
Hernandez (Mexico)

Lesley
Hustinx (Belgium)

Hagai Katz
(Israel)

Qiushi Liu
(China)

Jacob Mati
(South Africa)

Maria
Nindita Radyati (Indonesia)

Karl Henrick
Sivesind (Norway)

Steven
Rathgeb Smith (USA)

Naoto Yamauchi (Japan)

Membership

The 2012/2013 membership cycle began in January and had 675
members from 85 countries at year’s end.

(Click to enlarge)

Publications

Voluntas,
International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations received its
first impact factor as well as acceptance
into the ISI/Social Citation Index. The
2 year impact factor is 0.560 which places Voluntas
23/37 on the Social Issues List. The impact factor is a ranking given to a
journal by Thomson-Reuters/ISTR Journal Citation Report and is determined by the
number of citations to the articles published in a two year period. We anticipate that this number will increase
now that the journal is in the Index.

During 2012, there were two special issues of the journal,
one on Civil Society in Africa and one on Fundraising Regulation. The Africa
issue was most significant as it was tied very closely to our efforts to engage
with ISTR members working in Africa.

Website

The ISTR website which was launched in 2011 (hosted by
yourmembership.com) continues to expand with news, calls for papers, job
opportunities and links to social media, primarily, Facebook and twitter
postings. Within the website groups have
been established to provide the ability for a subset of individuals to
interact. For example, the group messages
were instrumental in organizing the PhD
seminar and the participants were able to post their material for the group to
view prior to the seminar. We continue
to encourage members to upload their profile details and network within the
site.

Regional Networks

The regional networks met during the International
Conference in Siena and are planning for their 2013 regional meetings in
Nairobi, Kenya; Santiago, Chile; and Seoul, Korea. In late 2012, the Calls for Papers for the
regional meetings were made available.

The Africa Regional Meeting will be held in Nairobi, Kenya
in July 2013, and hosted by Institute for Development Studies (IDS) at the
University of Nairobi and ACORD, Agency for Cooperation and Research in
Development. The theme is "Faith, Civil Society and Development in Africa.”

The 9th Latin America and the Caribbean Research
Network meeting will be held in Santiago, Chile and will be hosted by three
Chilean Universities—Universidad de Los Lagos, the Universidad Alberto Hurtado
and the Universidad Diego Portales. The theme is "Participation and
Representation: New Paradigms for Civil
Society in Latin America.”

The Asia Pacific Regional Meeting will be held in October
2013, in Seoul and hosted by Yonsei University’s NPO Research Center, Soonchunhyang
University, and KANPOR, Korean Association for Nonprofit Organization Research. The theme is "Nonprofit Law, Policy and
Practice: Evolution and Evaluation.”

Call for Proposals to Host Future International Conferences

A Call for Proposals to host future International
Conferences beginning in 2016 was distributed in September 2012. This call is an effort to reach out to
possible host institutions and/or individuals that can mobilize widespread
support from academic, civil society and other institutions, access financial
support from local private and public funders to generate funds needed to host
the conference, and be able to provide logistical support for the society and
related activities.

2012 Financial

Our 2012 reporting on revenue and expenses are displayed in the charts below.